Trial by Flame

Chapter 5

 "One moment, Mara. Let me finish signing this," came Maenas' voice from within. It sounded the same as she remembered, but still so deep compared to the rest of the party. "You can let yourself in if you'd like."

"Sorry to disappoint," Quinn replied, an unwitting smile lifting the edges of her lips. "But does that go for me, too?"

There was a shuffle. The brush of paper on paper, then a crash. The light seeping through the door intensified, followed by a curse and a fwoosh sound and the scent of something burning. The room went black for a moment, then there was a flicker, and a shadow bounced towards the door.

It swung open to reveal the most disheveled, awe-struck Maenas that Quinn had ever seen. His coppery eyes were stark, hair clipped into a tangled mess, with a flame light burning from one palm. Behind, his desk was a partially-burned mess, with a knocked-over candle and wax pooling on a charred page.

"You're—how did—when..." Maenas stuttered, unable to form even a portion of a sentence. Then he gave up on them, smothering his flame before giving Quinn the most massive, uncomfortably warm hug of her life. He forced Trelisti into one soon after.

When he finally let go, his eyes scanned over the crowd, welcoming towards Mirtis and Elyria, scrunched with confusion at Clariya and Tellik, and finally, setting over Eithien with a mixture of alarm and disgust. Eithien backed away at the same time that Maenas brought his gaze back to Quinn, question written all over it.

"Capture or friend?" he asked quickly. Quinn could see the conflict in him—the need to settle the hardest question early, but not to dilute everything else. There was so much expression in his face at once, the relief washed in with worry, bewilderment paired with assumptions.

"Friend's a strong word," sending a slightly-teasing, mostly-deserved glare towards Eithien. "But it's close enough."

"Then come in. You look like you've got a story to tell," Maenas replied, opening the door fully. He relit a one-hand flame and walked over towards his desk, lifting his fallen chair upright. The others filed in, with Eithien and Clariya lingering barely inside the doorway.

"Did you seriously do all this just 'cause you heard us?" Trelisti asked, motioning towards the burnt papers. "Those look important."

"Papers can be replaced. You guys can't," he said, straightening his candleholder and tidying up the pages. "Do you even know how worried we've been? The last word we received of you is that you went to Rith–and with what's going on there now, it seemed unlikely that you'd survived. Couldn't you have written, at the least?"

"I don't think cross-continent mail would have gotten here faster than we did," Trelisti answered. "And besides, you can barely read my or Quinn's handwriting. It wouldn't have done much good."

"Cross-continent?" Maenas asked, surprised. "What do you mean, cross-continent? Where did you all go?"

Trelisti and Quinn shared a glance. A guilty, who's-gonna-say-it-first kind of glance.

"Embrias," Elyria volunteered, though she avoided Maenas' eyes.

Maenas was quiet for a moment. Processing, or waiting for someone to chuckle and say it wasn't true. But no laughter came, and instead, there was just his stare, branding Quinn and Trelisti like a hot iron.

"Somehow," Clariya murmured, so softly that she just barely heard the words. "I don't feel like the parent here."

Luckily, the sound didn't reach anyone else.

"You've got about twelve seconds to explain why you thought, under any circumstances, that taking that level of risk was acceptable."

Maenas' response was firm. Not in a threatening way, but the kind of concerned, bordering-angry tone that he used when he disapproved of someone. Needless to say, Quinn and Trelisti were on the receiving end of that tone more than anyone else in Crossbane.